With the Black Death raging throughout Switzerland, poison was reported to have been found in the wells at Zofingen. Some Jews were put to the "Dümeln" (thumbscrews) test, whereupon they "admitted" their guilt of the charges brought against them. This discovery was then communicated to the people of Basel, Zurich, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and even Cologne.
The Jews of Basel were burned on an island in the Rhine on January 9, 1349, in wooden huts that were especially built for the occasion. Their children, who were spared, were taken and forcibly baptized.
On his way back from participating in a brit milah ceremony in Bohuslav (in what is now Ukraine), R. Aryeh Leib, known as the “Grandfather of Shpoli” was crossing over the frozen Ros River when the ice suddenly broke beneath his feet. Miraculously he was saved, and to this day his descendants mark this date with a joyous feast (Ish Hapelleh, pp. 299–301).
Daniel Pearl, an American-born Jewish reporter for The Wall Street Journal was kidnapped by terrorists in Karachi by a militant group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, which claimed that Pearl was a spy.
Nine days later, on Shevat 19 (Feb 1), Pearl was beheaded on videotape. The gruesome tape has Pearl stating that, “… My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish. …”
True peace is not a forced truce, not a homogenization of differences, not a common ground that abandons our home territories.
True peace is the oneness that sprouts from diversity, the beauty that emerges from a panorama of colors, strokes and textures, from the harmony of many instruments each playing a unique part, not one overlapping the other’s domain by even the breadth of a hair.
Those who attempt to blur those borders, whatever be their motives—they are unwittingly destroying the world.
Beginning with the crucial border between man and woman. For this is the beginning of all diversity, the place where G‑d’s oneness shines most intensely from within His precious world.